Staying On: A Novel (Phoenix Fiction) Read online

  “That’s just astronomy, Ibrahim.”

  “Astrology, Memsahib, not astronomy.”

  “Astronomy, astrology. No box, Ibrahim. Tonight I shall hide the box. Tomorrow if he asks for it you will say, nai malum baksh.”

  “And sound bigger fool than I look? No, Memsahib. Box is good for recuperation. With box good juices flow. Without box juices cease. Sahib turns his face to the wall and all is up with him and with us.”

  “No box,” she repeated. She vibrated in every frail bone. Her eyes were bright lavender, her skin like cracked bone china.

  In the morning her eyes were grey again, like her hair which needed another blue-rinse. Not smiling at him she said in her lightest smallest voice, “Perhaps you are right about the box. If he asks you you may give it to him. I am going to the chemist for his prescription.”

  Within ten minutes of her going Tusker asked for the box and the key. Ibrahim gave them to him. Then he went into the bedroom. He gave Lucy-Mem’s best pair of black high-heeled court shoes a special shine and replaced them on the steel rods at the bottom of the almirah. He dubbined the sensible shoes she had not worn since she and Tusker last went for a tramp, both wearing their tweeds, carrying stout sticks and accompanied by the dog they had inherited from the Blackshaws who had tried retirement (from Tea) in India but lost heart about it and gone home.

  After washing his hands he replaced worn-down mothballs with new ones among the little pile of cashmere twin sets in the second drawer of the chest. He examined each woolly vest and more delicate items of underwear, inspecting them for snags and setting aside any that could do with attention either from Minnie’s needle or his own expertise in invisible mending. Finally he opened her jewel box and removed the diamond ring and the diamond regimental brooch which she wore only on special occasions such as Ladies’ Night at the Pankot Rifles Mess, poured a small measure of the gin into a medicine glass, dropped ring and brooch in and left them to clean themselves.

  After they had soaked for ten minutes he dried them carefully, returned them to their velvet boxes then swigged the gin. The shadow of the disapproving Prophet fell on him.

  “Waste not want not,” he said aloud. The sun shone again. Aglow, he went out on to the verandah and stood arrested. Tusker Sahib was pale as death. The document in his hand shook. His mouth worked.

  “Sahib?” he ventured.

  Sahib took no notice. The document continued to shake, the mouth to work. Alarmed, he went down into the compound and stood where he could keep a watch on Tusker and a lookout for Memsahib. Seeing her returning he ran to meet her.

  “I was wrong, Memsahib. Box bad.”

  “Oh.”

  She stood still. True memsahibs never panicked.

  “Well, Ibrahim, we live and learn. How bad?’

  Ibrahim raised his shoulders.

  “Let us go together, Ibrahim, and see.”

  She led the way. Arrived by Tusker’s side for a moment Ibrahim thought the Sahib had gone. He sat slumped, eyes shut, mouth open. But suddenly he opened one eye.

  “Oh dear,” Lucy-Mem said. “Have I woken us from our little nap?” She clasped her hands under her chin.

  “We were not having our little nap. We were thinking our little thoughts. Plotting our little plots and planning our little plans.”

  “Plans for what, Tusker dear?”

  “Murder.”

  “And who is to be the unhappy victim?”

  By way of reply he handed her the document, a single sheet of paper, a letter in fact, which she complained she could not read without her spectacles.

  “Then that explains it. You didn’t have the bloody things on last time.”

  “Last time, Tusker?”

  “Last time. When you said, ‘How nice,’ or ‘that’s a relief’ or some such footling thing.”

  “If I commented on it dear I must have read it. And if I read it then I must have had my glasses on. So stop fretting. Read it to me and remind me.”

  She gave the document back; rather, had it snatched from her arthritic hand.

  “Dear Colonel Smalley,” Tusker Sahib suddenly shouted, as if he’d now decided she was deaf as well as short-sighted. “‘Mr Bhoolabhoy has explained your objection to proposed rent-increase. Agreed therefore to renew tenancy of Lodge from 1 July 1971 to 30 June 1972 on same terms and conditions as stated in clause 2 current agreement now otherwise expiring. Please countersign and return copy this letter enclosed both parties attaching letter to expiring agreement making no further need further formalities this year.’ Signed, ‘Mrs Bhoolabhoy, Prop.’”

  “Well?” Lucy asked.

  “Well? You call that well?’

  “You were pleased at the time. Chuffed in fact.”

  “Chuffed? What kind of damnfool word is that?”

  “One of your words, Tusker. Doesn’t it mean pleased?”

  “It may or may not.” He was still shouting. “But I’m not pleased now. You were supposed to check this letter. I didn’t know you couldn’t see it. How could I know a thing like that when all you said when you gave it back – I remember now – was, ‘oh, well done, Tusker.”

  “Wasn’t it well done?”

  “The bitch cheated us. Two heads are better than one you’re always saying. You’ve said it for years. You’ve brain-washed me into thinking it. You’ve made me rely. So it’s us that’s been conned. Us, not me. I’m not taking the responsibility.”

  Lucy-Mem drew up a chair and sat down. Ibrahim squatted nearby, ready to give advice if asked. After all it was a family crisis. As if sensing this in some remote corner of its dim brain the dog shambled out from its place behind Tusker’s chair, collapsed at Lucy-Mem’s feet and gazed mournfully from one to the other.

  “I’m not very bright over business matters,” she said. Tusker opened his mouth to speak but she ignored this and went on: “If you want me to understand in what way Mrs Bhoolabhoy has conned us you’ll have to explain it in words of one syllable.”

  “How the bloody hell can anyone do that when the two key words are current and agreement both of which have more than one syllable to start with? I’ve just read the damned letter out clearly enough. Can’t you even take it in now?”

  “Tusker, all I can take in is that you are raising your voice to me, abusing me, I won’t say in front of the servants because we have only one.”

  “It looks as though we’re going to need another, doesn’t it?”

  A long pause: Tusker glaring, Lucy fingering her string of seed-pearls, Bloxsaw panting, Ibrahim holding his breath.

  She let go of the pearls and stroked Bloxsaw’s head. The dog turned its blood-shot eyes to look at Ibrahim as if to share the caress with him.

  “I can’t think what you mean, Tusker, after the way Ibrahim has slaved for us while you’ve been poorly.”

  Ibrahim inclined his head to one side. Then waited. Behind Colonel-Memsahib’s gentle manner he recognized the familiar steel. Himself an old devotee of Hollywood films, as she was, he knew Memsahib was about to go into her Bette Davis bit. He had seen her at it when she thought herself alone, strutting up and down, arms folded, waggling her old bottom, muttering in that unmistakable voice. If the Sahib had another attack here and now and she was the only one with him and he asked for his pills she would remain (that’s what she was thinking) just where she was, stroking Bloxsaw’s head, eyes wide open staring at the canna lilies, pretending not to notice his distress, his fight for breath, his struggle to get out of the wicker-chair and fetch them himself. She would go on sitting fondling the dog, alert for the sound of collapse. Then after a minute or two she would go inside and call out in a calm voice, “Ibrahim? Ibrahim? Fetch Dr Mitra immediately will you? Tell him the master is ill. Very very ill.”

  For the moment, though, the master seemed very well. He said, “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Well Ibrahim did, didn’t he? Slave.”

  “So what?”

  “So how can you talk about
getting another servant?”

  “Yes, I see.” With exaggerated marks of patience and of suffering fools he folded the letter and put it back in the box and turned the key. “Personally,” he said, “I have always assumed that another means an other. One other. Not a different one, not one in lieu of one already. An other. Another. A mali for instance. To cut the sodding grass. Except that we’re not hiring one except over my dead body.”

  “Well yes, I see. I misunderstood. And you’re quite right. The grass is Mrs Bhoolabhoy’s responsibility. So you’ve always said, and so it is, it’s in the lease.”

  “Not any more.”

  “How can that be, Tusker dear?”

  “Because we haven’t had a lease since last July. We’ve only had that conning bloody letter. The one I’ve just read out to you, very clearly and distinctly.”

  Tusker put his head back and shut his eyes. Lucy-Mem raised her shoulders in mystification, and made a funny little face at Ibrahim.

  Encouraged he said, “What the sahib is saying, memsahib, is I think that Proprietor’s letter last year renewing tenancy until June 30 next referred only to renewal of terms and conditions as stated in clause two all other clauses not being renewed, for example perhaps clauses stating proprietor’s responsibility for exterior and interior decoration and upkeep of garden. Isn’t it?”

  “Why, Ibrahim!” Lucy-Mem exclaimed, clapping her hands together in surprise. “How quick you are. Isn’t he Tusker? Is that what the letter means? I should never have seen that.”

  Ibrahim beamed, then beamed at Tusker but found the eyes open and an expression on Sahib’s face that indicated no good.

  “Yes,” Sahib said. “How quick. Too bloody quick by half. So he can get out quick, too. Get up from there and get out. Bloody scoundrel!”

  “What have I done, Sahib?”

  “I’ll tell you what you’ve done, as if you didn’t know. You’ve been disloyal. You didn’t see the position like that in a split second. You’ve probably damned well known since last year. I can picture the lot of you laughing like drains. You and that thieving lot down there that Madam Bhoolabhoy calls servants. Ha!”

  Ibrahim was on his feet now. “What the Sahib says, the Sahib says. But what the Sahib says is not in accordance with facts. How could I be knowing such things? How could those you call idle fellows be knowing? Also has not the grass been cut since last July until only recently with mali gone to the Shiraz? Was bathroom not whitewashed last December and seats renewed?”

  “Whitewash! Ha! Too true. Whitewash. Wool over the eyes. Cunning bitch. I said get out.”

  Ibrahim appealed to Lucy-Mem.

  “Sahib says get out. From here, yes, but from here to where?”

  “To bloody Mecca for all I care,” Tusker said.

  “Mecca,” Ibrahim said, letting his shoulders droop as if exhausted by the very thought of such a journey. “Muslim old people’s excursion. Twilight coach trip. Depart Harringay 0800, with packed lunch of curry puffs and crates of Watney’s Pale. Sing-song all way to Southend and back and Kiss Me Sailor hat. What is Sahib taking me for? Day-tripping bugger-fellow?”

  Most of this was muttered. With dignity he went inside. With dignity he paused to listen.

  “How could you, Tusker? How could you treat Ibrahim so unkindly?”

  “He’s listening you bloody fool.”

  “What does it matter if he is? But he never listens. He has too much pride. You can’t treat Ibrahim like a servant, Tusker. He is, I know, but then he isn’t. And he’s a well-travelled man, a man of the world.”

  “Illegal immigrant. God kicked out. That’s my opinion.”

  “Pride, Tusker. That’s what I’m talking about. You have no pride any longer. Don’t interrupt. And because you have no pride neither of us does. We should have gone home.”

  “And who was it who wanted to stay on?”

  “You wanted. I agreed. We should have gone home at least after those years in Bombay. We should have gone home after the débâcle. Now it’s too late.”

  “What do you mean, débâcle?”

  “You know exactly what I mean, Tusker.”

  “I don’t. I’ve been married to you for more than forty years and I still don’t know what the bloody hell you’re talking about.”

  “At the moment I’m talking about pride. And you have hurt Ibrahim’s.”

  “You never do that of course, do you? Oh, no. Who was it sacked him last then? Tell me that? And who sulks with him for days after he’s been sacked by you, eh? Um?”

  “If you had pride, Tusker, instead of sitting here raving and ranting and working yourself into a tizzy about a box full of old paper, you’d write a firm but polite note to Mrs Bhoolabhoy inquiring about her intention in regard to the state of the garden.”

  “And have her draw my attention to that letter? Make me look a perfect fool? She conned us. Think I’m going to give her the satisfaction of knowing I’ve cottoned on at last but know I can’t do a bloody thing about it?”

  “Then forget about the garden until Billy-Boy comes back.”

  “I’ll forget about it, don’t worry. And a fat lot of use that henpecked little sod is if the bitch has made up her mind. Don’t think I don’t know she has, and why. She’s letting the whole place go to pot deliberately. So let it go to pot. Let the bloody grass come in through the windows. I don’t care. I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

  “Then I’ll help you, Tusker.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “It’s my duty to bother.”

  “In your interest too, eh? That’s more like. What’s to happen to you if I drop dead?”

  “That’s not something I care to think about, Tusker. Come on. Upsadaisy.”

  Ibrahim went his barefoot way through the kitchen and squatted on the narrow verandah at the back. He lit a Charminar. What, he wondered, was a daybarkle? Daybarkle, Day Barkle? Night Barkle? Whatever it was he fancied he was in the middle of one.

  Five minutes later, hearing her footsteps, he nipped out the cigarette and blew the smoke away above his head but remained squatting until her presence became positive and commanding. He got up slowly, his shoulders still drooped, but not quite abject.

  “Thank you, Ibrahim. You have done my shoes so beautifully – and my little bits of jewelry too, no?”

  He inclined his head. She must have been looking at them. Why?

  Her misshapen old fingers twitched at her beads. She said, “You must, must be patient with Sahib. We must both be patient. Very patient. You must please forgive him for what he said. Doctor Mitra is very worried. And I am worried. The Sahib simply isn’t himself. At least – he is more not himself than usual. May I confide in you, Ibrahim?”

  He put his hands behind his back, this being the best stance in which to receive a confidence.

  She began: “When a man who has always been active—” – her eyes changed colour – “— and suddenly finds himself inactive he tends, how shall I put it, to exaggerate every teeniest tiniest little thing, malum?”

  “Malum, Colonel-Memsahib.”

  “He sees mountains in molehills. Broth – for instance. Long grass. Tired canna lilies. The way the Shiraz Hotel casts all that wretched shadow when the sun comes up. So that the dew stays longer than it should. And the dew staying longer means more nourishment reaches the roots of the grass. Malum?”

  Ibrahim tilted his head but frowned slightly to convey his understanding that he was in the presence of a superior intellect.

  She fidgeted.

  “Let us walk,” she suddenly announced. He accompanied her into the back compound.

  Chapter Three

  “WE ARE PEOPLE in shadow, Ibrahim,” she said, then stopped her slow pacing and glanced up at the glass and concrete structure that had helped put them there. “And the dew does not so much nourish us as aggravate our rheumatism and our tempers. I need a young man. A boy will do. Do you know one?”

  Ibrahim blinked. “Memsahib?”

&n
bsp; “A stout youth. You must surely have among your vast acquaintanceship in Pankot such a one. I will pay him reasonably. Rather, I will pay you for procuring him and you will pay him for me. The Sahib must not know of this arrangement, although I might persuade him to increase your wage to reduce the cost of the boy to me.”

  The mind boggles, Ibrahim thought. She is an old lady.

  He said in a low voice, “What sort of boy, Memsahib?”

  “Oh, any sort, so long as he is strong and willing and not too expensive, and dependable, and could report for duty say three days a week. If necessary he could live here to be close at hand when needed. But yes, I see one snag—”

  He wondered which of the many snags she had seen to such an arrangement. She went on:

  “There is the question of tools. In this connexion tools are essential. We had better do nothing until Mr Bhoolabhoy is back. It is all very difficult. Mr Bhoolabhoy may have to be a party to the arrangement. Almost certainly he will. Arrangement. Let’s not call it deception. Yes, Mr Bhoolabhoy will have to be a party to it. In fact the boy must appear to be Mr Bhoolabhoy’s boy, quite apart from the question of tools, which I do not have, but Mr Bhoolabhoy must lend his. You understand, don’t you Ibrahim? I couldn’t afford to hire the boy and also hire or buy the tools essential to him to do his job. And another thing. This, please understand, is only to be an interim arrangement. The boy’s hopes of a permanent position should not be raised. An interim arrangement, yes, that’s the way to put it. An interim arrangement to help Sahib recover his own health and strength and not dissipate it worrying about this and that. His blood pressure is very high. It is dangerous for him to exert himself physically and emotionally. But I have to think of my own peace of mind, too, so if during this convalescent period I could obtain the services of such a boy, regularly, to give me peace of mind, then when Sahib is fully himself again I could confess everything, explain that he was really my boy, not Mr Bhoolabhoy’s. Well, not mine alone, Ibrahim. Ours. Yours and mine. Couldn’t we between us find and use such a boy?”

  “Memsahib,” he began, automatically finding the word somewhere in the still centre of his whirling mind.